Archive for June, 2007

My yarn stash is in such a state! I have basically 4 or 5 plastic totes plus a couple of smaller plastic containers full of yarn (my stash documentation got stalled during all my swap issues so I never did get it all that organized), to which I just add a layer of yarn when I get more. I have been very good lately, though, and not bought yarn since April, I don’t think. The last time I bought yarn it was for my SP10 and I bought a skein of Pastaza that was on sale for myself (I can’t say no to my favorite yarn, even though it was a weird color of green). I was just realizing recently that I haven’t bought yarn in awhile, after a few gluttonous times this winter.

I’ve been working on many of my shawl/scarf projects that I didn’t finish in time to give as teacher gifts, and as it was my friend C.Lo’s birthday last week, I had hoped to finish the Pachuco cotton shawl for her by her birthday (have I mentioned she is 6 feet tall, and you’re supposed to make shawls the width of the owner’s height 😉 ?) but I sort of lost it/got distracted by my Schachenmayr Catania scarf until earlier this week. I am on my 4th ball of Pachuco cotton (I think) and I was pretty sure I had had more, as I usually buy yarn in 700 yard increments, but I couldn’t find it.

Today I needed to attack my yarn stash to find any further balls, and I was so disgusted with myself! I have some really nice yarn that is falling out of the skein and not as gorgeous as it was when I bought it and just because I’m not storing it nicely enough. I’ve made some alterations to the storage, but not anywhere near enough. BR keeps suggesting we get California Closets done so I’ll definitely have to move it around to clean out the closet when that happens.

I did find three more balls of Pachuco cotton, so I’m still hard at work on my shawl, and some of my precious yarn is still in good condition, I’m happy to say. I’m embarrassed to say that as a librarian I should be even more ashamed that my “collection” is in such a state.

So my MIL passes on their Michael’s coupons when they get them. Yesterday was the last day of the coupon so I decided to stop by in the morning. Since I had a bit more time, I decided to go to Jo-Ann as well (can you believe I used to live up the street from there when I didn’t knit? Now I live 6 miles away!)

You would not believe what they had on sale: EVERYTHING! Literally – all knitting *books* 40% off; all knitting needles 40% off, all beads 40% off, all findings 40% off … I even ended up finding the decorative scissors I was looking for (no I’m not going over to the dark side of scrapbooking, but I like the designs they make!) for 50 cents!!! Yes, I had just bought 3 pairs at Michael’s for $4.99. I may return those, actually.

I don’t know how long the sale is going on, but if you’re near a Jo-Ann, stop in!

Can you believe BR actually tried to “show me” I can has cheezburger today? After I showed it to him already? Anyway, I definitely think this one will be circulating the knitting blogs soon (if it hasn’t already):

Well, since Friday night we haven’t had any recurrence of DL’s incident, but we are awaiting news as to what tests our insurance will cover. We’re lucky to have a great children’s hospital here at Stanford, so there’s that.

I haven’t felt like knitting much what with our drama this weekend and the summer and all (the kids are already driving me crazy!), but I have been in a cleaning mode since our tiny house was overrun by 8 firemen and paramedics. Just look at today’s project:

Yes, that is a WIP stuck in there, along with a couple I’ve since given up on.

I’ve been doing some beading too:

This is one of the seed bead necklaces I made recently. Then I couldn’t bear to be parted with the black and purple necklace I made for Chris, so I made a new one:

it’s hard to see the main bead but it is really interesting, and very 3 dimensional.

The knitting I am working on is one of the scarves I didn’t finish in time for my teachers. I was working this one double stranded but I don’t like that as much and I don’t think I’ll have enough yarn, so I’m frogging it, and need some of the yarn in that huge detangle so when that’s done I’m going to redo it single strand and two-colored.

I’m really excited to get some gifts out of the way so I’m not stuck next year!

I just barely caught my breath from finishing up my teacher gifts when we had even more drama here at home.

Thursday I went to Tuesday Morning and, passing up a pretty large yarn and bead selection, bought the rest of my teacher gifts. I ended up giving three teachers kerchiefs/scarves along with a decorative notepad. Three others I gave some really cute mugs, tea, and handmade paper cards. I wanted to keep those gifts for myself! BR was very gracious, saying I should have started earlier (!) so I could have gotten more gifts done. Maybe next year.

I still have my second Ocean Size kerchief to finish (I’m almost done with the yarn I’ve got), and the Pachuco Organic Cotton shawl that I started also as teacher gifts. My friend C.Lo (who, incidentally just got a book published as Elaine Lowe!!) expressed interest in the yarn, as you may remember, and her birthday is coming up this month, so I’ll work on that next.

Speaking of future knitting as well as WIPs, Carrie has found for me an earlier issue of Knitter’s that just might solve my pinwheel sweater problem. I’ll get to that next and see if the article helps me with my geometry problem.

But you wanted drama, didn’t you? I didn’t forget. So after giving away the teacher gifts and spending way too much money at Build a Bear Workshop, I dropped the kids off at a friends house and got 10 inches of hair cut off. Or at least it felt like that. Finally, after some drinks at the park (our playgroup moms have become lushes in our old age), I made it home and found out that I was needed to do some work with my mom’s company. Here’s where it gets crazy.

Our Internet was broken! (Which I need to do work.) Some of the sites worked fine, but some looked like ad sites and just wouldn’t work. I went off to Borders to use their WiFi. About an hour later I was bored so I decided to come home and see if the Internet magically worked now.

Well, it turns out that pretty much right after I left BR had heard a thump and when he went to investigate he found DL on the floor convulsing in some way. He called the paramedics and in about 2 minutes had 8 firemen and EMTs in our tiny house trying to see if DL was okay. He was awake the whole time, but they still said he should go to the emergency room. Meanwhile I was incommunicado. I got home about 40 minutes later, and got sent off to the emergency room. They looked at DL and said he looked okay, but he’s got to see his pediatrician on Monday. So scary! We really hope not to have any recurrences.

While we were out BR fixed our Internet – apparently someone hacked into our ISP and pointed many of the sites to their ad pages so they could make money from Google off of all of our eyes. Luckily I was then able to stay up all night working.

So, last night in the midst of 6 hours of the 1985 version of Pride and Prejudice (yes, I am obsessed.) I semi-solved the problem with scarf # 3 for my sons’ teachers. I technically have ready to give to them my mini-Ella (I had a great half assed blocking photo yesterday but my memory card got corrupted) and my Ocean Size scarf (which I need to find and hurriedly block), but as I mentioned I spent two nights frogging back the beginning increases of this scarf because they were too tight and curled strangely. I finally got it back most of the way to where it looked nice, and then I ended up stitching together the remaining edges so that it looked much better.

Then I was looking at it in the mirror and thinking how they might actually wear it (assuming it didn’t go straight into the trash or Goodwill) and decided instead of tying it with a very short end, it might work better as a neckwarmer. So I ended up having to pull out my collection of red buttons and mini sewing kit and quickly sewing on two buttons, then crocheting two “buttonholes”. I’m happy to have it be somewhat presentable, but I’m a bit embarrassed to give it away. I do like these teachers after all.

So just in case I am in fact not the slow knitter I believe myself to be, I cast on for one more scarf and if I can possibly finish it tomorrow (yeah, right) I’ll just give her that one instead of the one above.

Incidentally, I am doing pretty well, finally, with my knit from your stash pledge. I did buy some yarn from Little Knits about a month ago, but I still may send that to my SP10 (I couldn’t decide if I could part with it or not!) but I haven’t even been tempted to go yarn shopping in awhile. I have also been starting projects right and left with the yarn that I don’t like as much as other yarn so I can stashbust. The above scarf is made with double stranded Schachenmayr Catania. I may end up running out of the solid color, but I do have a contrasting variegated I can add in, if it doesn’t look too weird. I guess I’m just not confident enough to decide whether my hand knits are ugly or not.

This was supposed to be a triangle, except where I started (top middle/right) ended up being really weird. It looks poncho-like doesn’t it? Except it’s barely large enough for a kerchief. So tonight, after casting off because I was running out of yarn, I decided to start unraveling the beginning edge. I need to frog that middle section that kind of curls up, but it is so slow going and I have very little idea if it will even work. Of course this scarf needs to be ready by Friday, and I hate to frog it totally since I like how the other edges turned out.

Speaking of which:

This was the first scarf I started for my sons’ teachers. I was going to do a pinwheel scarf, but decided it was too hot for summer, plus you might be able to tell that the middle puckers up. So I got this bright idea that I was going to morph this into a sweater back, then make a normal sweater front. Only I was going to use it as a reverse stockinette project, since the puckering happens on the “right” side, and the “wrong” side looks okay. I suck at geometry, have I mentioned this? So I started knitting out to the end of the rectangle. Then I started knitting to the side of the rectangle. I still have a long ways to go to get this rectangle done. Not to mention that to make a sweater I’d have to make yet another side on size 2 needles.

What do you think I should do? Just give up?

P.S. I don’t like either of these yarns enough to really want to frog them. I’m tempted to just throw the bottom red one away entirely.